


Returning.

by Stormregard



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Spoilers, Yasha returns, mentions of the Thing That Happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormregard/pseuds/Stormregard
Summary: Come hang out with me on Tumblr... while it still exists;)





	Returning.

Admiring anyone was dangerous. Admitting it to yourself was a weakness.   
  
Death was born out of caring too much.   
  
It’s how she had been taught, how she’d been raised even before she’d ended up with the monks. Know your enemy left little room for understanding what it meant when your companions were instead your friends.   
  
Molly would have told her to just let her feel loved, let her take pride in her found road family. She could hear him as she drifted off to sleep;   
  
Well done, unpleasant one. That was nice. You almost look content right now. We will talk about it in the morning.   
  
The nights were the worst when she was gone; being on watch put her on edge, even when she was with Caleb or Jester. Even when they were safely tucked away in an inn. Everything felt… floaty. Distant. Like the crackle of lightning that pricked the hair on your arms before a storm. She couldn’t quite get comfortable. Couldn’t quite place the itch behind her neck or the shadow at the corner of her eye.   
  
She was pretty sure it would all be less painful if there was ever a way to prepare for Yasha’s disappearances, but her vanishing act was too well practised. One moment, they fought side by side in battles, playing off each other’s strengths, predicting the others moves. The next, the darkening sky would hide just enough of the light for Yasha to be gone.   
  
And Beauregard was never quite prepared.   
  
She rationalized to herself that the suffering was just the incomplete nature of their party, the missing link in their little band of misfits causing her unease. That everyone felt Yasha’s absence as keenly as she did.   
  
Even she didn’t believe herself.   
  
Yasha always turned up again in the same way, too. Without an explanation, full of apologies but not answers. Ready to fight and defend and love them all again.   
  
And it’s not that Beau ever for a second considered not being part of that version of reunion. It’s just. This time.   
  
This time everything was different.   
  
This time, Molly is gone.   
  
This time, they’d almost lost the whole group.   
  
This time, they’d nearly lost the battle and found a new ally whose story was more confusing than it was comforting. This time Beau was less sure than ever what their path was.   
  
This time, she’d slept with Keg.   
  
And sure, there was no reason not to have done it; they’d both had fun. Neither was attached to anyone, neither had ulterior motives. Sex for sex was an easy concept for Beau, and Keg had been a perfect choice. They’d both known that night for what it was; solace and celebration of victory. Comfort, nothing more.   
  
Beau had come more than once, with restraint and joy, no regrets. Yet, in her mind, the face that found her each time she crested was not the handsome and talented one beneath her who was much more silent and lethal out of her armour than in it but was still too small to be a replacement.   
  
She was gone before daybreak, saving them both from a morning of awkward puns or judgmental looks from Fjord.   
  
Most things in her life left her with a clear-ish conscience; remorse was difficult when you started off with chaos. And while the times when Yasha vanished from the Mighty Nein were never uneventful, they did usually leave Beau squared away with her own emotions.   
  
That was decidedly not the case the day she turned up on the docks.   
  
Hours later, now thoroughly annoyed at herself as she tossed and turned against the movement of the ship, Beau finally reached the time when she could relieve Nott and Jester from their watch. Perhaps she’d even wake Caleb, endure his grumpiness for the chance at some clarity through his melancholy reminiscences.   
  
Instead, however, she found who she’d already known she’d find.   
  
Yasha had made a little nest near the bow for her and Jester, the two of them perched up on the raised deck with a lantern balanced between them. Nott had already wandered back to her bedroll at Caleb’s side, and Jester was chatting idly at her while she sketched to the light of the flame.   
  
Yasha, of course, rarely replied, but the scene of loving contentment wrenched at Beau’s insides and left an unwelcome lump in her throat. It seemed so normal, so them. The first time in ages that things seemed to make sense.   
  
“I’m awake,” she said gruffly, rousing Jester with a small jolt and a huge smile.   
  
“Good,” she replied, closing her book and pulling a blanket from her shoulders. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep Yasha awake. You are a much better option. Good night.”   
  
As she skipped away, Beau practised standing perfectly still, despite the rolling of the deck on the relatively calm sea. She was not good at it. Her eyes were twitching, her hands itching to touch her belt. She exhaled deeply and watched Yasha turn toward her.   
  
“You should come sit. It’s warmer,” she said, before turning back to the horizon and drawing a blanket close.   
  
Beau nodded as she approached, moving a blanket aside as she bent down, planting the souls of her feet in a squat and looking out at the dark, hazy horizon, blurred to the point of ink with no separation between the sea and the sky. The night was not clear. She didn’t like keeping watch in cloudy darkness.   
  
Too hard to see what was sitting right in front of you.   
  
“You staying?” she asked abruptly in the silence.   
  
Yasha was quiet for a long time. Beau would have repeated the question thinking the Aasimar hadn’t heard her, but she suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.   
  
Finally, just when Beau was ready to flee, on the pretence of ‘checking the perimeter’, Yasha cleared her throat.   
  
“It’s not that I enjoy leaving you,” she muttered. “All of you,” she added quickly, glancing over at Beau.   
  
“Don’t, that isn’t what I meant,” Beau insisted.   
  
“I don’t always have a choice,” Yasha continued defensively.   
  
“Even still, you could at least say goodbye,” Beau replied gruffly.   
  
“What difference would that make?” Yasha asked, her tone having darkened to something approaching anger. Beau sat abruptly, ending up closer to Yasha than she had intended. “Goodbye is meaningless,” Yasha continued quietly.   
  
Beau laughed, a short and hideous sound. “Says the one who always gets to do the leaving.”   
  
Silence fell again between them and Beau pulled the discarded blanket over her shoulders as she shivered in the wind. It wasn’t unusual, sitting in silence with Yasha. It was one of her finest qualities. Yet, this time, even Beau—who was not known for her abilities to read people well—knew that this silence was of a different quality.   
  
“I hear you were not lonely while I was gone,” Yasha muttered, so quietly that had they not been alone in the shelter of the bow, Beau may not have heard her. As it was, she inhaled in sharp anger and took a deep breath before replying.   
  
“I won’t apologize.”   
  
“I don’t remember asking you to.”   
  
“You were gone. Had you been here—”   
  
“Had I been here _what_ , Beauregard?” Beau did not answer, and Yasha made the least Yasha-like sound of satisfied derision that Beau had ever heard. “Exactly so. You’d be better off leaving the niceties to Jester. You do a poor imitation.”   
  
Watching her sidelong as she was, Beau saw the moment Yasha’s hands went nervously to her coat, worrying the strings as she often did. It was a small gesture, one she doubted many people had noticed. But it was there and it was Yasha.   
  
Beau felt the anger drain out of her instantly, and, a moment later, a laugh bubbled up into its place instead. Yasha looked over at her in confusion but a smile quickly replaced it as Beau regarded her jovially.   
  
“We missed you, Dragon lady,” Beau shrugged easily.   
  
Yasha made a derisive noise and stared back at the sea. “I’ve told you, the wings are not…“   
  
She stopped as Beau started chuckling again. She smiled weakly as she understood the joke.   
  
"I missed you,” Yasha stated abruptly. “And also… I missed _you_. It was… hard. Being away. So soon after...”   
  
Beau regarded her watch companion steadily for a moment; it finally felt like the right time, but she had never been one to trust her own judgement. Words were not her strength, and though Yasha practically screamed for comfort, she was not Fjord nor Jester. Whatever she tried to say right now would only mess everything up.   
  
Instead, she shuffled closer. She put the edge of the large blanket around Yasha’s shoulder. Then, taking a deep breath and nodding to herself, Beau took the giant woman’s chin in her hand, gently pulling it down to her own forehead. When they were together, barely more than a brush, Beau murmured, 'we miss him, don’t worry. We’ll never let him be truly gone’.   
  
She curled her hand into Yasha’s black locks, pulled her down slowly, gently. There was no mistaking the implicit permission in the action; had she wanted to, Yasha could have removed Beau’s arm from the socket with no amount of cool monk shit saving her.   
  
When they’re lips met, cold and damp and slightly salty from the ambient air, Beau had to resist the urge to wrestle Yasha to the ground jovially, had to strain not to whoop with joy. It was definitely not _that_ moment. Instead, she let the answer and the comfort leak into their kiss.   
  
When she pulled back, Beau wrapped a protective arm around Yasha’s bent legs and laid her face against her knees, staring out into the inky world, searching the landscape for inherent danger.   
  
They finished the watch together in this silent embrace, each aware that tomorrow was another world away.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on Tumblr... while it still exists;)


End file.
